Thursday, June 06, 2013

USA – Out of the Game

The United States of America has withdrawn from power projection around the world, for good and bad. One can debate whether the US’s influence was positive or negative, yet it surely created stability.

The President of the United States has changed that. That’s within his purview, it certainly IS the role of the president to set the U.S. world posture. But it’s worth noting the president has changed U.S. posture – with no announcements, public or political discourse.

The U.S. public hasn’t noticed. The U.S. political class (congress) hasn’t noticed.

Regional powers vying for world influence, conflict states and enemy states HAVE noticed. Yet the public has been hearing about these state’s actions and not understanding why. Russia announcing new deployment of nuclear armed submarines. Iran pushing for nuclear weapons with no concerns of the U.S. response. North Korea announcing targeting of the U.S. without worrying about a harsh response. China pushing on Taiwan, pushing to take over islands in the China sea, pushing against Japan.

We’re not saying this is good or bad, but it is more chaos and conflicts that may explode than the world has experienced since World War I.

Here’s the unannounced evidence. This is a map of U.S. Naval Carrier and Amphibious Warfare ship deployments. Out of 19 carrier battle groups and amphibious warfare groups, 3 are deployed, the remaining are at Home Port.